It was
Electronic Intifada who first broke the story about the Guardian employing a
racist homophobe Joshua Trevino as part of its US team of correspondents.

The
firestorm that greeted this news has clearly taken the Guardian aback.Trevino was forced to write a defence of his comments
for the Guardian’s Comment is Free column. Apparently he didn’t get the
rhetoric right, whereas the substance was fine! If this is the standard
of his writing, then it is proof, if proof is needed, of the Guardian's sad
decline.

So
lame was his defence that former CIF editor, Matt Seaton, who himself drove CIF
to the right as its Editor, has been forced to defend this fanatical
Republican, ex-Bush speech writer.

I
have been doing a little research on this creature and I have to say to Ali
Abunimah of Electronic Intifada that good as your original article was, it only
scratches the surface. The man is an advocate of genocide. Indeed
he is a bigot on almost every level.

Trevino’s actual comments were:

‘"Dear IDF: If you end up
shooting any Americans on the new Gaza flotilla – well, most Americans are cool
with that. Including me."

In short he
advocated the killing of Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple and other
American peace activists, because they were sending aid to break the blockade
of Gaza.In fact he subsequently made
even more outrageous comments.

As I have been
saying for some time, the Guardian, which is losing money and circulation hand
over fist, has decided to reach out to the right.I was banned (by Seaton) for writing for CIF
after a Zionist campaign.CIF itself has
become more and more pro-Zionist.Only a
few days ago I posted a blog about a reference to Professor Moshe Machover of
King’s College, London University was
deleted by CIF censors (moderators).Comment is Free - but Only When We Agree!

An Advocate of Genocide

In fact Trevino is an advocate of genocide.In an article supporting the French tactics of murder and torture in
Algeria, before de Gaulle decided to withdraw, he argued that ‘One might look
to Algeria, where the Morice Line offers an instructive example of just how a
hostile border can and should be sealed.’Even worse was to follow.He
defended the setting up of concentration camps by the British in the Boer War. This was the first time that a western power had created concentration camps, something the Nazis gleefully imitated when Hitler came to power:

‘one might look especially to the Boer War, in which a fractious,
semi-fanatical culture was slowly ground into submission by an occupying force several
years after the seeming success of the initial invasion. If it sounds familiar,
it should: and so the means of victory there offer an instructive thought
experiment for Iraq today.’

Make no mistake: those means were cruel. I have stated previously that I
endorse cruel things in war, to eschew them is folly. The British achieved
victory over the Boers by taking their women and children away to concentration
camps, by laying waste to the countryside, and by dotting the veld with small
garrisons in blockhouses at regular intervals. The men who remained were
hindered in their movements by the wire stretching from blockhouse to
blockhouse (a phenomenon that the Morice Line experience has shown would be
massively more effective now); they could either surrender or die. Absent women
and children, the rules of engagement were lax.

Over 26,000 women and children died in these camps. And the creature who defends them to this day is now a Guardian correspondent. Advocating the murder of peace activists on the Gaza flotilla is small beer for Joshua Trevino.

Trevino's praise for the British in South Africa was in the context of advocating
the creation of concentration camps in Iraq in order that the Americans could
turn defeat into victory.Thousands died
in the concentration camps.They ended
up strengthening the Boers such that by 1909 Britain had effectively ceded
control to the Boers, under Jan Smuts (a fervent Zionist) in the Act of Union
of South Africa.It was thus accorded
Dominion Status, i.e. virtual independence.

It says a lot for The Guardian under
Jonathan Freedland & Alan Rusbridger that it can even contemplate employing Trevino. Why not go the whole hog and ask Ernst Zundel, who believes there was no Holocaust to lend his talents too? All in the name of balance. Seaton's defence of Trevino is truly pathetic.It is the 'liberal' argument that we publish
those we disagree with.Why even
corporate stooge Glen Greenwald, ex of Salon, is part of the new Guardian US
team.Seaton writes that ‘you
should also know that it's fundamental to the Guardian's philosophy that we
choose to hear and give a platform to opinions we may disagree with.’

This is however a miserable liberal lie.Seaton omits to mention the name Dilpazier
Aslam, a former trainee journalist with The Guardian.In July 2005 he lost his traineeship, i.e.
was dismissed, after being outed as a member of the Islamist group Hizb
ut-Tahrir. ‘The Guardian was alerted to Aslam's membership in the
group by bloggers who read Aslam's 'Comment' op-ed article on the July 7 London bombings. Entitled "We
Rock the Boat," the July 13 article discussed the attitudes of young
British Muslims and how their increasing anger over perceived injustices
contrasted with their elders' silence.’

The Guardian was quick to make
amends. At the front of an otherwise
interesting article there was placed the following:

‘The following correction was
printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column, Saturday July
23 2005

At the end of this article, we identified the author
Dilpazier Aslam as a Guardian trainee journalist but did not say that he was a
member of the political party Hizb ut-Tahrir. The Guardian accepts that Mr
Aslam's membership of the party should have been explicitly mentioned. A
statement by the Guardian has already appeared in the paper, with a fuller
account on the Guardian
website.’
In other words there are certain opinions that are beyond the pale.He was specifically asked at his disciplinary
hearing whether he would renounce membership of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a rather
unsavoury, right-wing Islamic group.But
Hizb ut-Tahrir is far less unsavoury than Trevino, the advocate for genocide
and concentration camps that the Grauniad has now employed.It would appear that under the banner of
freedom of speech, supporters of American genocide are welcome, but Islamists
of a right-wing flavour are shown the door.

Those of us on the Left made no complaint about Aslam.Hizb ut-Tahrir is an Islamic fundamentalist
organisation.He had no place in a
liberal newspaper.But is an advocate of
genocide, a supporter of concentration camps, a rank homophobe and Bush speech
writer any better?Most people would say
that the only difference, apart from the fact that Trevino is far worse than
Aslam, is that he is part of the US political establishment.

It is not surprising that Commentary, house-magazine of US
neo-cons, a thoroughly McCarthyite magazine and pro-Zionist to its roots, which
regularly advocates silencing Palestinian supporters, has denounced the
campaign against Trevino.The Casual Smearing of a Conservative
The Guardian eventually reached an out of court settlement with Aslam but
the damage had been done.It is doubtful that Seaton is unaware of the
Aslam affair. Background: The Guardian and Dilpazier Aslam.
As Wikipedia noted, ‘Before joining The Guardian, Aslam had written
three articles for Khilafah.com, a
website closely associated with Hizb ut-Tahrir, and was once called its Middle
Eastern correspondent. The newspaper
stated that after publication of "We Rock the Boat," it found an
article on Khalifah.com, that appeared to be an "incitement of
violence against Jews."Note that
Aslam did not personally pen the article or indeed have anything to do with it
or express any sympathy with it.Indeed ‘Aslam
told Alan Rusbridger, The Guardian's editor, 'that
he personally rejected anti-Semitism, would not leave Hizb ut-Tahrir, and did
not consider Khilafah.com anti-Semitic. Rusbridger and other executives
decided that membership in Hizb ut-Tahrir was not compatible with membership in
the trainee scheme.’

Seaton, who is not the
brightest sandwich in the picnic, also responded to Sarah Colborne of Palestine
Solidarity Campaign.‘Hi Sarah. I think it's only fair
to observe that Furkan Dogan was killed during the first flotilla. Treviño's
tweet under discussion here related to the second flotilla.’Sarah had been pointing out that Dogan who
was killed was an American citizen (he held joint Turkish-American
citizenship).

Seaton apparently thinks
this somehow excuses Trevino’s comments whereas it makes them worse.Even though Trevino knew of the murder of 9
peace activists on board the Mavi Marmara, he still continued to advocate the
murder of unarmed civilians by the IDF.

Trevino’s defence is a good example of the
rank stupidity of the US Right and the Guardian’s new correspondent.In response to criticism that he advocated
the murder of US citizens he argued that ‘I urged no such thing. I
intended no such thing. But sufficient numbers believe I did, and in cases of
widespread misapprehension of meaning, the fault always lies with the writer.’I have
responded (though for how long the comments are up is anyone’s business since I
was banned from posting under my own name) that:

‘No of
course you didn't advocate the murder of American citizens on board the Gaza
flotillas, you merely assured the Israeli Defence Forces that were they to do
so, most Americans would applaud their acts!
It is, as Oscar Wilde put it, a distinction without a difference.

Much of
the rest of Trevino's appalling apologia, which is as bad as his original
statement, is equally disingenous, i.e. not honest. It isn't just consumer goods that weren't
circulating through Gaza. Medical
supplies, building materials, sanitation equipment. Presumably the Guardian must think that
ignorance is not only bliss but a suitable qualification for one of their US
correspondents.

You then
go on to say that 'the Gaza flotillas sought to render aid to a known terrorist
group – and, in my view, its participants were morally complicit in that.
Moreover, in these circumstances, Israel was within its rights to prevent the
breach of its blockade and to defend itself by force compounds the lie. For the Guardian to employ someone who cannot
distinguish truth from lies as its US correspondent is a disgrace.

The
activists concerned were trying to give aid to the people of Gaza, not a
'terrorist' group. Hamas is the elected
government of Gaza. If Trevino knew
anything of their history he would understand that just as the US helped Al Quaeda
to be born so Israel went out of its way to sponsor and create Hamas as a
counterweight to secular Palestinian nationalist groups. But why is it that bombing Gaza, including
schools, sewerage plants, chicken farms, the university, hospitals etc. to say
nothing of homes, with ordinance including white phosphorous is not an act of
terrorism? Trevino like his Democrat
compatriot Hilary Clinton is blind in one eye.
He only sees the suffering of the oppressor, never the oppressed.

To cite
Clinton as some kind of authority on 'terrorism' is akin to quoting Count
Dracula on the benefits of vegetarianism.
Clinton is a representative of a state that is responsible for countless
deaths, mayhem and destruction and to talk of 'targeted killings' in Yemen or
elsewhere is to be complicit in those war crimes. The drone attacks in Pakistan have killed
hundreds of innocent people. US foreign
policy has no moral cloak despite Trevino's rhetoric. In their 'war for democracy' in the Middle
East the US has been responsible for over a million deaths in Iraq, yet isn't
it strange how this war never seems to reach the shoreline of Saudi
Arabia? Strange that....

It would
appear that the ex-liberal Guardian too is now complicit in the Orwellian
control of the news agenda by hiring someone who was a cheer leader for murder....’

Later I posted that:

‘It says a lot that a member of the Guardian Editorial team
has to jump in to protect their new find, one Joshua Trevino. Clearly Trevino is so inarticulate that he
needs your help. You should explain to
Trevino the English saying that 'when in a hole stop digging'. Matt Seaton, a former editor of CIF, has had
to come galloping to his rescue employing the old liberal argument that we may
not agree with someone but that should not stop us employing him.

But it's all in vain
Mr Seaton because it only extends to advocates for murder in the
establishment. Your defence of Trevino
is therefore, who actually advocates the murder of unarmed protestors, is
disingenuous. Or have you forgotten the
case of Dilpazier Aslam, the Guardia trainee journalist who was also a member
of Hizb ut-Tahrir. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilpazier_Aslam He was dismissed by the Guardian because of
his membership of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a rather nasty right-wing Muslim group, but
far less nasty than Trevino.

Every day you employ censors, sorry 'moderators' to weed out
uncomfortable posts. Your liberalism has
narrow limits. Which is why when the
Zionists initially raised a hue and cry over my writing for CIF, because I
dared to compare Nazi rule in Germany 1933-9 with Zionist attitudes and
behaviour I was banned from writing.
Your liberalism tilts rightwards only these days.

And having taken the Guardian before you were even born, I
can vouch that it is rapidly moving to the right. The Manchester Guardian and Observer, both of
which opposed the Suez War of 1956, are not the same papers as the Guardian and
Observer today.

Let's see how long this comment stays up!’

Trevino - An anti-Gay Bigot Who Supported the Prosecution of Anwar Ibrahim for Sodomy

Now, one
can debate the relevance of a story about a presidential candidate in high
school, although bullying tendencies at age 15 don’t always go away. But as
Ezra Klein pointed out in another tweet, “the reactions are telling us some
disturbing things about others.” Indeed they are. They remind us that
conservatives love bullying and they love homophobia. And that includes
supposedly serious and respectable conservative Josh Treviño.’

What price freedom of speech Matthew Seaton?

I’m happy
to cross-post an excellent article on Trevino from the liberal-Jewish Tikun
Olam, edited by Richard Silverstein:

I’ve been
reading with interest that the Guardian has appointed two new
blogger-columnists, one of whom makes perfect sense and the other just makes me
scratch my head and say: Huh? They are Glenn Greenwald and Josh
Trevino. Greenwald of course is a fighting tiger of the progressive blog
world. He’s a great catch for The Guardian. But Trevino?

I can
understand the desire to balance Greenwald’s progressive fusillades with a conservative
equivalent, but Trevino is a creep of the lowest order. Ali
Abunimah has exposed his homicidal rantings against the American contingent
in the Gaza Freedom flotilla (which included Nobel laureate, Alice Walker):

Dear IDF:
If you end up shooting any Americans on the new Gaza flotilla — well, most
Americans are cool with that. Including me.

Thanks to
Jesus’
General for that one, who notes that using this logic Josh would’ve
encouraged the El Salvadoran death squads to murder American nuns (which they
did). In this tweet, the right-wing incendiary likened the Flotilla to a
“Nazi convoy:”

Not
morally different from a Nazi convoy, is it? RT @KurtSchlichter:
Sink the #flotilla.
Enough screwing around with these psychos.

By the
way, I could offer the link to these tweets a few days ago, but after his
shellacking at the hands of Abunimah, Trevino has rather foolishly decided to
put the evidence behind a protective barrier. You can only see his tweets
now if you’re within his trusted inner circle. He doesn’t want anyone
snooping through his rancid racist garbage. Perhaps wisely so.

To be
clear, I don’t have a problem with someone supporting Israeli policy, even the
Gaza siege, as long as they do so using reasonable rhetoric that eschews terms
like “Nazi” and incitement to murder. There are those who can do this and
if the Guardian wanted a conservative commentator it could’ve found such a person.
But it went instead for a flamboyant, ranting showman. It wanted a
slightly more cultured, domesticated version of Anne Coulter. And it got
one, with a vengeance.

MJ
Rosenberg has also tweeted about Trevino’s white supremacist public statements.

The
former Texas Republican PR flack also tries to hide his client list from those
years. From this
Malaysian political blog, it would appear that the ruling Malaysian
political party was once one of his clients. That’s the only way to
explain an odd series of posts and columns in Huffington Post and Washington
Times which attempted to argue that the ruling party’s prosecution of the leading
Opposition political leader, Anwar Ibrahim, for sodomy, was justified.
Since Trevino’s PR flackery also includes lots of spinning on behalf of
pro-Israel clients, he appears to have won the Daily Double in attacking
Ibrahim for being not just a Sodomite, but an anti-Semite.

A few
years ago, a friend asked me whether he should consider joining a pro-Israel
junket being organized by Trevino under the rubric of Act for Israel. I did some
research (didn’t know much about Trevino at that point) and offered my opinion
that it was a pro-Israel shill group. What was clever of Trevino was that
he was inviting a group of progressive writers and bloggers to join an
all-expense paid trip to Israel during the imbroglio over the Carmel
fires. You’ll recall this natural disaster also involved massive
unpreparedness of Israel’s civil authorities, including firefighters (no
firefighting planes), which led to 40 unnecessary deaths including Haifa’s fire
chief.

Under
those particular circumstances, Israel’s friends thought it was imperative to
co-opt a group of liberal writers to sing Israel’s praises. What I found
astonishing about Trevino’s come-on to the group was his promise that he could
offer side-trips to Gaza and the Lebanese border. It’s beyond odd that
Trevino could promise an American journalist a trip to Gaza. Either he
doesn’t know anything about the situation in Gaza (likely) or he was flat-out
lying (possible).

Even
before beginning his tenure at the Guardian as a formal columnist was forced to
inaugurate it with a twisted
partial mea culpa that was in itself a sack of lies. You read one of
his disgusting tweets above. Here’s how he speaks today of what he wrote
then:

…Any
reading of my tweet of 25 June 2011 that holds that I applauded, encouraged, or
welcomed the death of fellow human beings, is wrong…

Excuse
me? This is like the cheating husband caught in flagrante delecto and
saying: “Who’re you gonna believe? Me or your lyin’ eyes?” Well my lyin’
eye knows homicidal racism when I see it.

You simply can’t lie it away as
he has here.

Unfortunately,
what the Guardian has bought here is a racist sack of garbage. A guy
who’ll pretty up homophobic scare tactics for enough money. Someone
who’ll politically pimp for Israel if the price is right. Sure, you can
say he’s shed his former clients and now he’s an honest man. But who
would believe that? Perhaps a Guardian editor…'

News Update

According to Ali Abunimah, the Guardian has already started backtracking on its appointment of Trevino. He is no longer a member of its editorial team but a freelance contributor!! Methinks we aren't going to hear much from him.

1 comment:

But I disagree with your characterisation of Glenn Greenwald. Greenwald has exposed and denounced US corporate 'journalism' very effectively. And his 'obit' of C.Hitchens did not pull any punches either. I suggest you research him a little more.